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QP45  .Am34  Opinions  concerning 


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OPINIONS 


CONCERNING 


Vivisection  and  Dissection  in  Schools 


Selections  from  Report  of 

The  American  Humane  Association, 

Chicago,  1895. 


C4 


SELECTIONS   FROM   THE   REPORT.! 


The  American  Humane  Association,  deeply  im- 
pressed by  the  growing  prevalence  of  vivisection  as  a 
method  of  study  in  our  larger  educational  institutions, 
and  regarding  its  introduction  into  public  and  private 
schools  as  both  dangerous  and  unnecessary,  recently 
sent  circulars  on  this  subject  to  a  number  of  persons, 
whose  opinions  it  deemed  of  value,  and  whose  judgment 
it  desired.  The  report  of  this  inquiry  embracing  a  con- 
siderable number  of  letters  from  all  parts  of  Europe  and 
America,  has  just  been  issued.  For  wider  circulation  it 
is  thought  best  to  print  separately  a  few  of  these  opin- 
ions in  the  present  form. 

The  questions  submitted  were  in  substance,  whether 
experiments  involving  the  infliction  of  pain  or  death  upon 
helpless  creatures  would  tend  to  cultivate  or  to  blunt  the 
natural  sensibilities  of  children  assisting  thereat ;  whether 
it  was  advisable  to  give  children  a  belief  in  their  irre- 
sponsible power  over  the  lower  forms  of  life,  or  cause 
them  to  be  familiar  with  bloodshed  and  death  ;  whether 
all  that  is  necessary  for  children  to  know  of  physiology 
could  not  be  taught  by  other  means  than  experiments 
upon  animals  ;  and  finally,  whether  in  those  cases  where 
exposition  of  vital  organs  before  advanced  classes  be 
deemed  advisable,  it  would  not  be  better  to  make  such 
demonstration  and  exhibition  upon  organs  obtained  from 
the  butcher,  of  creatures  already  killed  for  purposes 
of  food,  and  not  upon  animals  used  as  pets  and  as- 
sociated with  human  affection. 

The  Association  records  the  fact,  that  with  but  few 
exceptions,  the  writers  agree  with  its   expressed  opinions 


3 

about  such  experimentation  in  our  schools,  and  believe 
it  is  not  only  injurious  and  uncalled  for  by  necessity, 
but  that  it  so  blunts  the  natural  sensibilities  as  to 
operate  to  the  moral  detriment  and  deterioration  of  the 
character  of  the  vounff. 


Wm.   T.   Harris,   A.   M.,   LL.  D.,    Co7nmissioner  of  Edu- 
cation^   U.   S.  : 

••  I   am   glad  to   learn   of    some    movement    against  a 
practice  too  widely  extended,  of  dissecting  animals  before 
the  children  in  the  elementar}'  schools." 
Frederick  Harrison,  Esq.,  London,  England  : 

•'  I  am  surprised  and  shocked  to  learn  that  there  can 
exist  schools  of  any  kind  where  young  boys  and  girls  are 
allowed  to  witness  dissection  of  living  animals  under  any 
circumstances  whatsoever. 

But  I  should  have  thought  that  all  persons  of  decent 
feeling  and  of  practical  experience  of  the  young  must  be 
agreed  on  the  depraving  effect  of  accustoming  boys  and 
girls  to  see  death  inflicted,  to  witness  organic  operations, 
and  to  find  that  the  ghastly  incidents  of  the  surgical  and 
the  dissecting  table  are  part  of  their  manuals  of  education. 
I  can  imagine  nothing  more  certain  to  blunt  their 
sense  of  humanity,  and  to  surround  their  intellectual  life 
with  degrading  association. 

Those  who  are  parents  or  moral  teachers  know  how 
difficult  it  is  to  extirpate  the  love  of  cruelt}^  to  which  so 
many  children  are  prone.  But  for  their  teachers  to 
familiarize  them  with  cruelty  as  part  of  their  training,  is 
a  strange  perversion  of  the  moral  sense. 

I  care  not  whether  the  anaesthetics  are  adequate,  or 
whether  the  dissection  is  of  dead  animals  — /'^M  are 
rei'olting  and  deeply  demoralizing  for  children.     And  the 


4 
enormity  is  increased  where  the  animals  dissected  are  the 
companions  of  our  daily  life. 

Auguste  Comte,  who  was  a  philosopher  as  well  as  a 
professor  of  science,  taught  us  that  the  domestic  brutes 
we  train  to  our  service,  are  in  a  sense  admitted  to  our 
humanity.  And  he  would  not  have  the  highest  moral 
teachers  of  the  young  defile  themselves  with  the  dissec- 
tion even  of  the  dead.  He  thought  this  was  incompati- 
ble with  the  profoundest  sense  of  reverence  for  human 
life. 

I  write  as  a  parent  and  teacher  of   long  standing,  who 
has  followed  courses  of  philosophy  of  many  eminent  men, 
and  who    has    practical  experience  of    biological    experi- 
ments." 
From  His  Eminence,  Cardinal  Gibbons,  Baltimore . 

"The  best  interests  of  children,  in  my  judgment,  re- 
quire that  they  be  not  familiarized  with  the  sight  of 
blood,  or  death  inhumanly  inflicted.  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  sufficient  instruction  could  be  imparted  by  use 
of  illustrations  and  manikins.  " 
Prof.  Geo.  W.  Atherton,  State  College,  Pa.  : 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  the  practice  of  either  vivisection 
or  dissection  in  the  presence  of  children  of  the  usual 
school  age  is  not  only  unnecessary,  in  the  grade  and 
amount  of  instruction  that  can  be  given  in  the  public 
schools,  but  is  altogether  injurious  and  inadmissible. 
Its  advantages  at  that  stage  of  instruction,  seem  to  me  to 
be  very  slight,  while  the  disadvantages  and  injurious 
results  upon  the  habits  of  thought  and  feeling  of  the 
pupils  seem  to  me  so  obvious  that  every  right-thinking 
person  must  revolt  against  it." 
Rev.  Dr.   Lyman   Abbott,  Pastor  of  Plymouth    Church, 

Brooklyn,  Editor  of  "■  The  Outlook,"  Netv  York  City  : 

"  I  should    think  it  very   clear   that  not  only 
vivisection  but  even  the  dissection  of  animals  carried  on 


5 
by  or   before   children  of  public  school    age   must  do  a 
great  deal  more  harm  than  it  can  possibly  do  good." 
Rev.  a,  J.   Chapin,   D.   D.,    Omaha,  Nebraska  : 

"  I  believe  the  business  of  dissection,  and  especially 
of  vivisection  as  practiced  in  the  public  schools  of  all 
grades,  to  be  wholly  unnecessary  and  wrong,  and  am  glad 
to  use  any  influence  which  I  may  possess  against  the 
demoralizing  practice." 
Rev.  J.  E.  G.  Welldon,   D.    D.,  Head-Master  Harrow 

School,  E7igland  : 

"  I    should    say    such   experiments     will    undoubtedly 
blunt  the  sensibilities  of  children." 
Rev.   Frederic  E.   Dewhurst,  Indianapolis  : 

"  Keep  the  scalpel  out  of  the  hands  of  children,  and 
give  them  Wordsworth  and  John  Burroughs  to  read." 
Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  A.  Nelson,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.  : 

"  The  result  of  vivisection  before  the  eyes  and  minds 
of  immature  school  children  does  little  more  than  gratify 
a  morbid  and  cruel  curiosity.  It  leaves  behind  a  miser- 
ably small  increment  of  knowledge  to  compensate  for  the 
irreparable  injury  to  those  finer  instincts  and  sympathies 
which  are  the  patent  of  our  nobility  as  man,  and  which 
hft  us  above  the  level  of  that  inferior  life,  so  often  need- 
lessly tortured  to  gratify  a  simulated  passion  for  know- 
ledge." 

Rev.  James  O.  S.  Huntington,  Holy  Cross  House,  West- 
minster, Maryla7id  : 

"  History  makes  it  quite  clear  that  such   experiments 
will  tend  to   blunt    the  sensibilities.     Education   means 
not  merely  crowding  facts  into  a  child  but  making  him 
more  kumane.^^ 
Rev.  Charles  A.  Northrup,  Norwich,  Conn.  : 

"  I  am  heartily  in  sympathy  with  the  object  you  are 
seeking  to  attain,  viz.  :  A  public  opinion  averse  to  such 
methods  of  instruction." 


6 

Nathan  Green,   LL.   1).,    Chancellor    Ciiinbcrhi/iii     Uni- 
versity,   Tennessee  : 

"  I  am  unalterably  opposed  to  the  dissection  of 
animals,  such  as  cats,  dogs,  etc.,  before  children.  The 
whole  business  of  vivisection  is  of  questionable  propriety, 
and  this  practice  before  children  for  the  purpose  of 
instruction  is  simply  barbarous." 

Pres.  Geo.  Williamson  Smith,  LL.  I).,  Trinity  College^ 

Hartford  : 

"  The  killing  of  animals  by  and  before  children  of 
public  school  age,  under  the  plea  of  instruction  in 
physiology,  I  am  persuaded  is  unnecessary." 

Pres.  J.  W.  Bissell,  D.  D.,  Upper  loioa  University  : 

"  I  am  fully  in  sympathy  with  your  efforts  to  bring 
about  a  reformation  in  our  present  methods  of  teaching 
by  vivisection  and  dissection." 

Pres.  Edward  D.  E.vion,  D.  D.,  LL.  D.,  Beloit  College, 

Beloit,   Wis.: 

"  I  fully  agree  with  the  American  Humane  Society  as 
to  the  needlessness  and  injurious  tendencies  of  the 
vivisection  and  even  the  dissection  of  animals  by  and 
before  children  of  public  school  age." 

Prop.   A.  J.  Granger,  Newton  Ili^h  School,  Mass.  : 

"  As  a  teacher  I  should  make  my  answer  emphatic. 
There  can  be  no  reason  for  such  experiments  in  our 
public  schools." 

Prof.    Alfonse    N.    Vandaell,   Institute  of  Technology, 

Boston,  Mass.  : 

"  I  believe  that  physiology,  properly  so  called,  ought 
not  to  find  a  place  in  any  school  below  the  college  grade. 
The  elements  of  hygiene  can  and  ought  to  be  taught, 
although  under  present  regulations,  the  study  in  my 
opinion  is  begun  too  early." 


7 
George  A.  Bacon,  A.  M.,  of  the  firm  of  Allyn  ^  Bacon, 

Publishers,  Boston,  Mass.  : 

"To  my  thinking  there  is  absolutely  no  excuse  for 
killing  animals  in  order  to  teach  anatomy  or  physiology 
in  our  schools.  In  the  first  place  the  practice  in  dis- 
section which  pupils  get,  amounts  to  nothing,  and  they 
are  just  as  likely  to  come  to  wrong  as  to  right  conclu- 
sions, from  their  observation." 

H.  H.  Freer,  Prt?/.  Science  and  Art  Teaching  and  Political 
Econotny,  Cornell  College,  Mt.  Vernon,  Iowa  : 
"  It  is  time  to  call  a  halt  upon  the  infliction  of  pain  on 
animals,  or  wantonly  killing  them  for  the  purpose  of 
teaching  anatomy,  physiology  or  hygiene  to  young 
children.  All  that  children  need  to  know  on  these  sub- 
jects can  be  taught  without  resorting  to  processes  that 
will  blunt  the  sensibilities,  deprave  the  taste  and  brutal- 
ize the  whole  nature  of  children. 

The  boy  murderer,  Pomeroy,  was  1  believe,  from  early 
life  accustomed  to  the  scenes  of  the  slaughter  house, 
and  his  environment  no  doubt  was  responsible  for  his 
cruel  and  murderous  tendencies." 

John  E.  Kimball,  Zate  Supt.  Schools,  Newton,  Mass.: 
"  The  practice  referred  to  is  unnecessary,  painful  in 
the  extreme  to  sensitive  natures,  cruel  and  demoralizing. 
In  my  experience  as  Superintendent  of  Schools,  I  have 
heard  of  instances  of  fainting  and  real  suffering  to 
susceptible  children  in  connection  with  this  very  repre- 
hensible practice.  If  there  is  one  phase  of  culture  out- 
side the  usual  curriculum  in  our  public  schools  which 
should  be  of  constant  care  it  is  tb*-  habit  of  uniform 
kindness  to  the  lower  orders  of  animate  creation,  and 
this  is  not  consistent  with  a  practice  which  must  blunt 
the  sensibihties  of  all,  if  it  does  not  in  some  cases  tend 
to  develop  types  -of  brutality,  which  from  time  to  time 
shock  society." 


8 
H.  D.  Lloyd,  Editor  of  "  Chicago  Tribune  :  " 

"  Experiments  involving  infliction  of  pain  or  death 
tend  to  blunt,  and  therefore  io  brutalize  children  in  their 
human  relations. 

I  do  not  live  up  to  the  doctrine,  but  I  believe  that  our 
physical  as  well  as  sympathetic  evolution  is  moving  to 
the  point  at  which  we  will  be  as  incapable  of  killing 
animals  for  food  for  the  body  as  for  food  for  the  mind." 
James  Jeffrey    Roach,    Editor    "  The    Pilot,''    Boston, 

Mass.  : 

'*  I  consider  the  vivisection  of  animals  for  the  ostensi- 
ble instruction  of  children,  to  be  cruel,  useless  and 
demoralizing  in  the  extreme,  and  that  everything  neces- 
sary for  the  teaching  of  physiology  could  be  as  clearly 
and  more  humanely  taught  by  the  use  of  illustrations 
and  manikins. 

It  is  not  vitally   important  that  children   should  know 
all    about    their  own    internal    organs ;  it   is   absolutely 
important  that  they  should  be  taught  mercy,  even  to  the 
lowest  of  living  things." 
Rev.     Samuel    J.     Barrows,     Editor    "  The     Christiari 

Register,'^  Boston,   Mass.  : 

"  I  believe  it  to  be  a  serious  mistake  to  encourage 
children  to  any  irresponsible  use  of  their  power  over  the 
lower  forms  of  life. 

Children  should  be  taught  that  might  is  not  right,  and 
that  the  same  laws  of  love,  mercy  and  justice  which 
apply  to  human  beings  should  be  applied  to  the  animal 
creation  so  far  as  possible. 

It  seems  to  me  that  it  is  an  abuse  of  the  name  of 
education  to  familiarize  children  with  the  infliction  upon 
animals  of  mortal  wounds,  etc.,  under  the  pretence  of 
imparting  scientific  knowledge.  An  animal  is  not  to  be 
treated  as  a  toy,  which  a  child  is  encouraged  to  take 
apart  just  to  see  how  it  is  put  together. 


9 
The   development    of   the    spirit  of   love,  mercy   and 
justice  is  more  important  than  to  turn  the   school   room 
into  a  butcher's  shop  or  a  dissecting  room  to  gratify  an 
intellectual  curiosity. 

Physiology  should  have  its  place  in  school  instruction, 
but  quite  as  important  is  the  subject  of  ethics,  which 
includes  not  only  our  duties  to  our  fellow  beings,  but 
also  our  duties  to  animals." 

Dr.  H.  W.  Pierson,  Editor  '■'Medical  Advance,''  Chicago, 
III. : 

"  Promiscuous  vivisection  is  uncalled  for  and  serves 
to  gratify  the  baser  elements  in  our  nature,  whether  it 
be  children  or  adults,  and  should  be  condemned  by  all. 
Individuals  preparing  for  the  special  study  of  the  subject 
of  physiology  will  not  have  their  finer  senses  blunted  by 
study  of  the  mechanism  of  the  body  in  life.  To  all 
others  this  should  be  denied,  by  law,  if  necessary." 
Richard  Howell,  Editor  ''Bridgeport  Herald;'  Bridge- 
port, Conn.  : 

"  There  are  those  upon  whom  vivisection  will  have  a 
horrifying  effect,  but  there  are  many  in  whom  the  prac- 
tice in  public  schools  will  develop  an  inordinate  love  to 
be  cruel  to  dumb  animals. 

The  plastic  mind  of  the  public  school  pupil  is  as  sensi- 
tive to  an  impression  as  the  dry  plate  of  a  photographer's 
outfit,  and  the  impression  which  vivisection  makes  upon 
one  of  these  young  minds  may  develop  frightful  traits  of 
character." 
Rev.  E.  B.  Graham,  Editor  "  Midland,"  Chicago,  III. : 

"  Children  should  not  be  allowed  to  see  game  shot  by 
cruel  sportsmen,  or  domestic  fowls  killed  even  for  food  ; 
and  much  less  should  they  become  famiUar  with  cruelty 
in  the  interests  of  education." 

Dr.  M.  L.  Holbrook,  ^^//^^  ''  Herald  of  Health;'  N.  Y.: 
"  I  do   not  think  the   slightest  good   in   practice  ever 


comes  to  children  from  the  experiments  alluded  to. 
They  are  unnecessary.  Study  animals  alive  acting 
naturally,  and  some  good  can  be  learned.  Studying 
them  in  the  throes  of  pain  cannot  help  teach  hygiene." 

Clifford  W.   Barnes,  C/iicago,  III.  : 

"  Having  studied  physiology  and  hygiene  by  the  use 
of  illustrations  and  manikins,  and  having  afterwards 
studied  in  a  medical  college  and  had  experiments  in 
vivisection,  I  can  speak  with  assurance  when  I  say 
that  no  child  in  the  public  schools  needs  to  resort  to 
experimentation  on  living  creatures  in  order  to  obtain  a 
perfectly  satisfactory  and  sufficient  knowledge  of  the 
essentials  of  physiology."' 

Miss  Alice  M.   Longfellow,  Cambridge: 

"  It  would  seem  to  me  of  far  greater  value  to  lay 
stress  upon  the  importance  of  observing  and  understand- 
ing, instead  of  taking  away  the  essential  element  of  its 
beauty  and  interest.  It  seems  to  be  poor  humanity  and 
poor  science  to  think  either  is  served  by  destruction 
instead  of  by  preservation." 

Prof.  J.  H.  Allen,  Cambridge,  Mass.: 

"  It  is  shocking  and  unpardonable  that  any- 
thing approaching  or  resembling  vivisection  should  be 
permitted,  except  in  professional  schools,  and  then  only 
under  the  greatest  precautions  as  to  ancesthetics.  . 
For  all  that  can  be  profitably  taught  to  the  ordinary  pupil, 
plates  and  models  are  preferable  on  every  account." 

PkoF.  Bar,  University  of  Gottinge/i,  Germany: 

.  .  .  "  I  agree  fully  with  the  American  Humane 
Association  in  the  opinion,  that  not  only  vivisection  but 
even  dissection  of  animals,  killed  by  and  before  children 
of  public  school  age  will  inevitably  operate  to  the  moral 
injury  of  the  young," 


Rt.   Rev.   Thomas  A.   Starkey,   Bishop  of  Newark : 

"  In  my  judgment  it  is  of  the  greatest  importance  that 
all  children,  boys  especially,  be  taught  carefully  and 
with  painstaking,  humanity  to  animals.  It  is  more 
than  important,  it  is  vitally  necessary.  Children  are 
apt  to  be  thoughtless  ;  boys  are  often  so  to  the  verge  of 
cruelty.  Any  exhibition  therefore  which  is  deliberately 
prepared,  and  with  such  experiments  as  you  describe, 
must  in  my  opinion,  have  the  effect  of  encouraging  this 
native  insensibility.  We  may  easily  pay  too  dear  for 
knowledge,  and  whatever  benefits  may  accrue  in  the  way 
of  added  knowledge  from  such  methods  of  instruction  as 
those  you  refer  to,  is  dearly  purchased  by  the  loss  of  so 
great  an  element  in  Christian  character  as  humanity,  the 
chivalric  feeUng  of  the  strong  for  the  helpless  and  weak." 
Rt.  Rev.  W.  C.  Doane,  LL.  D.,  Bishop  of  Albany,  N.  Y.  : 
"  I  do  not  beheve  the  effect  upon  children  of  witness- 
ing experiments  upon  living  animals  can  possibly  be 
good.  It  must  either  shock  their  sensibilities  if  they  are 
what  they  ought  to  be,  or  tend  to  encourage  them  in 
cruelty  if  they  have  that  unnatural  strain  in  them." 
Rt.  Rev.  N.  S.  Rulison,  Assistant  Bishop  Central  Penn- 
sylvania : 

"  In  my  judgment  vivisection  and  the  killing  of 
animals  by  and  before  children  attending  the  public 
schools,  and  also  the  dissection  of  animals  under  similar 
circumstances  are  practices  which  cannot  be  really 
necessary,  and  which  most  inevitably  blunt  the  sensi- 
bilities and  corrupt  the  character  of  the  young." 
Rt.  Rev.  John  Williams,  LL.  D.,  Bishop  of  Connecticut: 
"Without  entering  especially  into  particulars,  I  am 
quite  ready  to  say  that  in  my  view,  any  and  all  vivisection 
and  kilUng  of  animals  before  children  of  public  school 
age,  and  also  their  dissection,  cannot  but  be  most  injurious 
to  such  children  and  ought  to  be  entirely  discouraged." 


12 

Rr.  Rev.  Thomas  M.  Clark,  Bishop  of  Rhode  Island: 
"  I  was  not   aware  that  any  such  atrocity  existed,  as 

the  introduction  of  vivisection  into  our  ordinary  schools, 

and  I  think  that  it  ought  to  be  forbidden  by  law. 

If  physiology   cannot   be    taught  our  children  by  the 

use  of  manikins  and  illustrations,  it  will   be  well  not  to 

teach  it  at  all." 

Rev.    Dr.   Morgan   Dix,    D.    C.    L.,    Rector  of  Trinity 

Church,  New  York: 

.  .  .  The  system  of  education  of  the  young  appears 
to  need  a  fundamental  reform,  and  it  is  perhaps  fortunate 
that  fads  of  this  kind  should  be  introduced  as  rapidly  as 
possible,  in  order  that  the  need  of  such  a  general  and 
rational  overhauling  in  the  interests  of  much  abused 
childhood  may  become  more  thoroughly  evident  to  the 
general  view. 

It  is  not  necessary  that  the  average  boy  or  girl  should 
be  made  an  expert  in  anatomy,  physiology  or  biology. 
Such  studies  are  only  appropriate  for  those  intended  for 
the  degrees  in  surgery  and  medicine.  I  feel  certain  that 
all  that  is  necessary  for  the  time  can  be  accomplished  by 
models  and  illustrations  and  that  there  can  be  no  need 
of  a  display  of  ether,  knives,  blood,  wounds  and  death. 
Upon  the  whole,  I  confess  to  amazement  at  the  infatua- 
tion of  those,  whoever  they  may  be,  who  have  introduced, 
or  deem  it  wise  to  introduce,  such  methods  into  an  already 
overloaded  system  of  education,  and  I  deprecate  with  all 
earnestness  the  mischief  likely  to  ensue  from  so  wide  a 
departure  from  the  principles  and  modes  of  sober 
common  sense  and  useful  teaching. 


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R.  I.     Price  12  cents  per  dozen,  or  94  cents  per  hundred,  postage  paid. 

The  more  complete  Repokt  of  the  Association  will  be  sent  by  mail, 
postage  paid,  on  receipt  of  four  cents  in  postage  stamps,  or  a  dozen  for  40  cents. 


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